by Lindsay Eyre
In the second round, Josh spelled typically correctly. “Josh knew that word a long time ago, right?” I asked Miranda.
She looked at me, not smiling. Her forehead was crunched. She looked confused, as if she was thinking too hard about spelling words. “Never mind!” I whispered.
The bee went on. Rounds three, four, and five passed by. Josh spelled triumphant, remorseful, and tremendous.
“Josh is getting really easy words, right?” I said to Georgie, who elbowed me in the elbow.
Round six began with no kindergarteners, first graders, or second graders left, including Mary Fink. Daniel must not have given her the words, even though he had them. I was so sweaty, my hands wouldn’t stay dry no matter how much I wiped them on my pants. Mrs. Stetson looked proud, like Josh had just brought home one hundred of her favorite bear claws. Would she look that happy if she knew Josh had cheated?
When round eleven began, there were only four spellers left: Josh, munion number two, and the other two fifth graders. The rest of the fourth graders were out. Josh was our last chance.
“Perpendiculars,” the judge said to Josh.
“Shoot!” I whispered, because that was a hard word. Josh might not have known that word before. I looked at Miranda to see what she thought, but she was staring at Josh and biting her lip.
“P,” he said slowly, “E-R-P-E-N-D-I-C-U —” Josh stopped. He shut his mouth. He turned red, which made me wonder if he was still breathing.
Get it wrong! I thought. Get it wrong so you don’t cheat!
“L-A-R,” Josh said as the crowd held their breaths. “S,” he added at last, and everyone sighed in relief. Except for me.
When round twelve began, only Josh and munion number two were left.
“We are so totally going to win,” munion number one whispered to my back. “Then you won’t be able to play baseball ever again.”
“Josh has totally got this!” Georgie whispered to her. “The field is going to be ours!”
I looked at Georgie to see if he actually knew Josh would win because he knew that Josh had already learned these words. Georgie’s eyes were shining. His nostrils were flexed. He sure looked like he knew something, but he didn’t look unhappy about it. Maybe he didn’t care if Josh had to cheat to win.
I looked back at Daniel Fink. He shook his head at me as if he was trying to tell me something.
“Exorcise,” the judge said to the munion.
She spelled it correctly.
“Extraterrestrial,” the judge said to Josh.
Oh no! I thought. That was the word Miranda said earlier!
“E,” Josh began.
I looked up. Josh looked stressed, as if he’d just realized he was cheating, and he didn’t want the letters to come. He was not a cheating person. He’d never forgive himself if he cheated.
“X-T-R-A-T-E-R-R-E-S-T-R-I-A-L,” Josh said, finishing fast.
“Correct!” the judge cried.
“No!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “It’s cheating! Give him another word! One that’s not on that list!”
No one moved, no one made a sound. Josh looked right at me, shocked. Then he took a step back, and the cafetorium exploded like a den of roaring lions. Kids whispered, talked, and shouted. Others laughed so hard, they snorted, mostly the fifth graders. Way up front, still sitting in his row, Cale was crying. Tate put his hands over Cale’s mouth to shut him up, but that only made him cry harder.
“It wasn’t Josh’s fault!” I called over the noise. “It was my fault. I gave him the word list!”
“Shut up, Sylvie!” Georgie said. “Josh was about to win!”
“Quiet, all of you!” Principal Stoddard thundered into the microphone. “I want inside voices now!”
She didn’t get them. The judges were talking to her, shaking their heads. The police officer was approaching the stage, heading toward Josh.
Oh no! I thought. The police officer is going to arrest Josh!
Cale nearly knocked me over as he ran like a leopard to our mom. “It wasn’t the rabbit!” he wailed. “It was the lizard. The lizard!”
Tate chased after him, screaming, “Stop in the name of the magic bunny!”
Everyone was standing now. Daniel Fink came up to me. “Josh didn’t cheat,” he whispered. “And you don’t have to be my girlfriend.”
The munions surrounded us. “Josh cheated, so we win!” munion number two said.
“So Robot Leg is your boyfriend?” munion number one said.
“Don’t call him Robot Leg!” I shouted.
“Sylvie Scruggs!” Mr. Root boomed into the microphone.
The room went still. Up on the stage, Mr. Root stood with one hand on Josh’s shoulder. Josh stared at his feet. He looked as if I’d just punched him in the stomach with sixteen different elbows. Mr. Root stepped away from the microphone. “In my office. Immediately.”
My mom followed me into the office with Ginny on her hip and Cale sobbing at her side. Tate came in behind Cale, looking like he wanted to bite him in the ankle. Mr. Takaru, their teacher, walked in after them. He looked as if his kindergarteners had bitten him in the ankle one hundred times. Mrs. Stetson and Josh were there already. The police officer entered last with Mary Fink and Daniel.
The office was crowded. Mr. Root ran his fingers through the hair he didn’t have and suggested that my mom take the sobbing Cale and go home. I thought this was a great idea, because I didn’t want my mom or my brothers to be in the room when I confessed to cheating, but my mom shook her head.
“I’d like to stay with Sylvie, if you don’t mind,” she said. “And I know this isn’t the time, but Cale is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t confess something he seems to think is very important.”
Everyone looked at Cale. “We we we —” he began before bursting into a round of goopy sniffles and snorts.
“We cheated,” Tate said, rubbing at the carpet with his foot. “We put extra votes in the box so we could get a rabbit for a class pet. Because we’ve always wanted one.”
“Ah!” Mr. Takaru said. “That explains why there were sixty-four papers in the box.”
“Cale!” my mom said. “Tate! How could you?”
“It was my idea,” Daniel said, stepping forward, his right foot landing with a thump. “I told them what to do and how to do it. I even made the extra voting slips.”
“Daniel!” his sister cried. “You were supposed to help me get a lizard!”
“That’s the interesting thing,” Mr. Takaru said. “There were sixty-four votes in the box. Thirty-two of them were for the rabbit, and thirty-two were for the lizard. Someone arranged things so that no one would lose.”
Daniel nodded, but did not explain. Then he took a deep breath. “The list I gave Sylvie wasn’t real. I made it up, so Josh didn’t really cheat.”
“You made it up?” I said. “You mean, you didn’t get it from the folder?”
Daniel shook his shaggy head, his eyes on the ground.
“What list?” Josh said.
“What list?” my mom said.
“The spelling list,” Cale said. “But it’s a secret.”
“Daniel Fink!” the police officer, who must have been Daniel and Mary’s mom, said.
“But I voted for the rabbit because I felt sorry for you!” Mary said to my brothers. “There should have been one extra vote for the rabbit.”
“No,” Cale sniffled. “Because I voted for the lizard. So we wouldn’t be cheating so much.”
Mr. Root took control of the situation. “Daniel, you and your mother wait out here, please. I’d like to see Sylvie and Mrs. Scruggs and Josh and Mrs. Stetson in my private office. Mr. Takaru, please take your students back to class. Perhaps you can have another vote?”
Mr. Takaru looked at the hysterical Cale. “If you three can calm down, you will find, when we return, that a nice compromise has already been made.”
“It has?” Tate said with a huge chunk of suspicion.
�
��Are you going to give us money?” Mary Fink said through her tears. “Because I’d like five bucks.”
* * *
It took a long time for me to explain everything. I had to start at the baseball field and the sadness of my team, and end with the spelling bee and how I was a big fat cheater. So much had happened in between that when you told the whole story at once, it sounded really, really bad. I didn’t say anything about Josh or his mom or the lists on his walls, because those were supposed to stay a secret.
“Sylvie,” Mr. Root said when I was finished, “I don’t believe, in my ten years as assistant principal, I’ve ever heard of someone with better intentions making such enormous mistakes. It’s clear that you were trying to save your baseball field for the kids who needed it. It’s also clear that you allowed yourself to forget what was right and wrong along the way.”
“Yes,” my mom said as she helped Ginny with a burp. “Amen.”
“You should have given Josh a chance to win the spelling bee without cheating,” Mr. Root said. “He is an excellent speller, as he proved today. He knew all of those words without any help from you.”
I looked at Josh. His head was down and he was staring at his hands.
“I wasn’t sure,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t know. He’d been so sick.” I stopped talking then, because everything I said made it sound as if I hadn’t thought Josh could win. Which was true. I hadn’t.
“You need to have more faith in your friends,” Mr. Root said.
“I think,” Mrs. Stetson said slowly, “that even when you do have faith in someone, it’s hard to leave winning to chance. Because you know that person wants to win so much.” She looked at me. “Is that right, Sylvie?”
Tears were in my eyeballs. I sniffed and wiped at my nose so they would go away. “Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Mr. Root stood up, his jolly face lost in the wrinkles on his forehead. “Sylvie, you and Daniel both demonstrated that you will do almost anything for your friends — or your lack of friends. But some things are more important than even friendship. Things like honesty. Do you understand?”
I nodded, even though I was pretty sure I didn’t want to understand anything ever again. It hurt too much.
Mr. Root’s jolly face returned. “Now, according to the judges, the interruption was the sort that necessitates either starting over completely or allowing for a tie, and we are not starting over again. So Josh and Alexa have tied for first place. I’m afraid, Sylvie, you’ll have to think of another way to solve the baseball field problem. I sympathize with those kids who have nothing else to do, but if you can’t work things out” — he paused and waited until all eyes were on him — “we may have to ban baseball for the rest of the year.”
Mr. Root dismissed us. He said Josh and I could go home for the rest of the day, but we would have to return to school tomorrow.
“Mr. Root?” I said as I walked out of his office. “Maybe you shouldn’t punish Daniel. He wouldn’t have done anything if I hadn’t asked him to.”
Mr. Root smiled a quiet smile. “Thank you, Sylvie. Daniel’s had a rough time of it ever since he moved here. He’s had a rough time of things for several years. I think he’d do just about anything to make a friend.” He paused to give me a grown-up, important look. “Maybe now, he won’t have to.”
* * *
On our way to the parking lot, Mrs. Stetson and my mom began talking about how hard it is to raise children in this day and age, and they forgot all about Josh and me as we walked behind them. This was good and bad. I was happy to be forgotten by my mom, but I didn’t want to be walking alone with Josh. I wanted to crawl into my bed and put my pillow over my face and pretend that I was in third grade again, when life had been simple.
I knew that Josh would never get mad at me. We’d just go on being brisk and smiling friends, and we’d pretend for the rest of forever that none of this had ever happened. Only it had happened, and even if Josh forgot about it, I never would.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered in my most whispering voice. “I shouldn’t have done that. Not without asking — only I knew you wouldn’t want to cheat, and I didn’t know how smart you’d become at spelling. I was worried about you. I didn’t want you to lose! I was worried about the baseball field. I was worried about our team and that I’d messed everything up. So I was stupid. Extra-stupid.”
Josh nodded. “I would rather lose than cheat. Winning’s not that important to me, but I know it’s important to you. Especially when it’s against those munions.”
I looked at Josh, astonished. Winning wasn’t that important to me! Not really. Not exactly. I was worried about the baseball kids and about Josh and Alistair and the field. I didn’t care about those munions at all. Did I?
A new truth whacked me right in the face. Josh was right. I had been worried about the field and about Josh and my team and everything else, but I’d also really wanted to win. I’d wanted to win so much, I was willing to cheat.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, because that was all too terrible to say out loud.
Josh nodded. “Did you really want to be Daniel’s girlfriend?” he said.
“Want to?” I cried. “No! Of course not! I don’t want to be anyone’s girlfriend. Ever. In my life!”
Josh nodded again, only this time his cheeks were turning pink, which was annoying because it made my cheeks feel all pink too. “Thanks,” he said.
“Thanks?” I said. “Thanks for getting you into this mess? Thanks for embarrassing you in front of the whole school? Thanks for nearly making you cheat because I wanted you to win too much?”
“Thanks for being my friend,” Josh said.
Our moms stopped talking about how hard being a parent was. “It’s time to go, Josh!” his mom called.
Josh smiled, his cheeks still pink. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
My stomach sank — kerplunk — down to my feet. It practically leaked onto the parking lot. We hadn’t figured out what to do about the baseball field. I could already hear the shouting and the fighting and the smirking when we saw the fifth graders again. “What are we going to do at recess?” I said.
Josh shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’m sure whatever you figure out will be great.”
I practiced four different speeches the rest of that day, and as I fell asleep, and while I ate my sugarless cereal the next morning.
“Relax, Sylvie, everything will be fine,” my mom said.
“Your speech sounds good, honey,” my dad said.
“When you talk with your mouth full, you look like a fat squirrel,” Tate said.
Later, when the bell rang for recess, I walked straight down to the baseball field. One by one, the kids on my team began to follow me. By the time I made it to the field, the whole team was trailing me in a messy line. I was like the Pied Piper of baseball.
I looked for Daniel. I’d promised to stand by him at recess, and I was not going to break that promise even if I didn’t have to be his girlfriend. But Daniel was nowhere to be seen, and the fifth graders were already on the baseball field, only this time they had bats and balls and mitts.
I looked over my shoulder at the kids on our side. They’d brought bats and balls and mitts too. To my surprise, they looked as ferocious as lions. They did not want to get hit in the face with a soccer ball or told they couldn’t play hide-and-go-seek. They wanted to play baseball, and they wouldn’t settle for less.
We stopped on the edge of the field.
“We beat you,” munion number two said. “Josh cheated. The field is ours.”
“He didn’t cheat,” Miranda said. “The spelling bee ended in a tie — Mr. Root said. You both won, so we’ll have to take turns.”
The fifth graders began shouting that they would never take turns. Our team shouted the same. It was like trying to mix a rabbit with a lizard. There had to be another way. In Tate and Cale’s kindergarten class, things had worked out perfectly: Mr. Takaru had decided to get a ra
bbit and a lizard. The kindergarten would have two class pets and everyone would be happy. But it wasn’t that easy here. There weren’t two fields.
Mr. Root was standing at the top of the playground, watching us. He had his jolly face on, but his fists were on his hips, clenched like a gorilla’s. Daniel Fink had appeared. He was standing in his old spot in the trees, watching, listening. He was alone, of course, because he was always alone.
There was a time when I’d thought Miranda didn’t want to be my friend anymore. That had been awful. There was a time when Alistair thought he had no friends, back when we started playing hockey. That had been awful for him. I thought about what it might feel like to have two normal legs, then to get cancer, and suddenly you walked funny and people called you Robot Boy. That would make you feel more alone than anything.
“We have to play all together,” I said out loud, though no one was listening.
The shouting didn’t stop, so I took two steps away from my friends toward the pitcher’s mound. “We have to play all together!” I shouted.
Silence fell over the baseball field. I took a deep breath and began my speech. “Everyone wants to play every day, right?”
“Right!” they shouted.
I crossed my arms so my voice wouldn’t shake. “There’s only one way that can happen! We’ll have to play together every day, so no one will be left out.”
“No way!” the munions shouted. But they were the only ones. Everyone else shifted their feet. They looked at their elbows. They were wondering if it could possibly work.
Josh stepped up beside me. “Sylvie’s right,” he said. “The teams will be big if we play together, but we can put extra people in the outfield. Alistair can make sure everyone gets equal turns at bat.”
Alistair gave me a high five that wasn’t very high because he isn’t very tall. “I’m in,” he said. “Like a rock.”
I had no idea what he was talking about so I gave him another high five.